I try to log my observing and related activities in a regular blog - sometimes there will be a delay but I usually catch up. An index of all my blogs is on the main menu at the top of the page with daily, weekly or monthly views. My Twitter feed is below. I am also interested in photograping wildlife when I can and there is a menu option above to look at some of my images. I try to keep the news feeds from relevant astronomical sources up to date and you will need to scroll down to find these.

The Celestron 14 is mounted on a Paramount ME that I have been using for about 10 years now - you can see that it is mounted on a tripod so is a portable set up. I still manage to transport it on my own and set it all up even though I have just turned 70! It will run for hours centering galaxies in the 12 minute field even when tripod mounted.

I was notified by Guy Hurst of the Astronomer magazine about the presence of an optical transient in Messier 51. It was discovered on 22nd January 2019. It is a 'supernova imposter' - a variable star that has brightened considerably so, unlike a supernova, it will not be destroyed. I took an image of this on 2nd March 2019 using a remote 10" reflecting telescope in New Mexico. This is shown below. I have added some nearby stellar magnitudes to the image to compare with the transient magnitude. By ‘solving the plate’ of the image in the SkyX software I measure the coordinates of AT 2019abn as RA: 13h 29m 41.8s Dec: +47° 11' 12" (Epoch 2000).Full details of the transient can be found here.

On Tuesday 19th February this year I visited the Harris Museum in Preston to see the ‘Museum of the Moon” It is based around a 7 metre diameter giant Moon that was suspended from the ceiling in the Harris Museum which is an Art Gallery and Library in central Preston.